Gary Numan The Mystic Theater, Petaluma May 18, 2022 Photos by Raymond Ahner Gary Numan is no stranger to playing in Northern California over the last year in support of his 2022 album Intruder. Playing in San Francisco at the beginning and end of 2022, this year he decided to make a stop at the Mystic Theater in Petaluma, a venue that I had never been to before. Much to my surprise, it was one of the most intimate venues I’ve seen him at (this show was my twelfth time seeing Numan), and it served as a perfect venue for…
Author: Tyler King
Tyler King
Tyler King is a Bay Area native who has attended hundreds of shows since his first concert at the age of 15. A musician himself with a post-punk project called Vio\ator, Tyler also has a YouTube channel called NuReview, where he shares his passion and views on both contemporary and classic synth pop, new wave, and post-punk.
Modest Mouse Ace of Spades, Sacramento May 6, 2023 Photos by Tyler King A lot of music fans have a first band that they fell in love with on their own; their parents didn’t make you listen to them, or they weren’t played on the radio when you became a fan. To me, that band is Modest Mouse. I became a fan shortly after the release of their third album, The Moon & Antarctica, in 2003, but didn’t see them until 2007. The last time that I saw them was a decade ago, so you can imagine my desire to…
Screaming Females Bottom of the Hill April 8, 2023 Photos by Tyler King Screaming Females is a band that I’ve been a fan of for nearly a decade, but have missed every headlining appearance of theirs for various reasons ever since familiarizing myself with the band. I knew that I couldn’t make that mistake following the release of their latest album, Desire Pathway. They brought their tour in support of the album to the Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco, their first headlining show in the Bay Area since the COVID pandemic, and it was a packed house. Taking…
Depeche Mode SAP Center March 25, 2023 Photos by Nikki Baptista Depeche Mode is still the world’s biggest cult band. Despite being the best-selling electronic band of all time and being inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2020, the band is still not as well-known as their reputation would have you think, despite still being able to fill stadiums. This was the case at the SAP Center in San Jose, where the band was able to sell out the second night of their tour in support of their new album, Memento Mori. Starting the show with…
Godspeed You! Black Emperor The Chapel March 13, 2023 Photos by Tyler King I wasn’t sure what to expect when I saw the first of five dates that Godspeed You! Black Emperor were playing at The Chapel in San Francisco. To say that I was even a casual fan would be a stretch; I had heard their acclaimed 2000 album Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven when I first was dipping my toes in post-rock a dozen or so years ago and had heard a few songs here and there, but I was almost entirely unfamiliar with the…
Photography by Geoffrey Smith III Note: This interview was conducted before the release of the album Desire Pathway Tyler King: First of all, I want to say thank you all for agreeing to be interviewed. I’ve been a fan of yours since the album Rose Mountain came out. The first thing I want to ask is, how do you guys approach a festival set when compared to playing a headlining set or an opening set? Marissa Paternoster: I just kind of try and do my best every time. Jarrett Dougherty: We have less time to play than if we were…
Homesick Festival 2023 UC Theatre January 20-21, 2023 Photos by Tyler King (Day 1) & Geoffrey Smith (Day 2) For the second year in a row, the UC Theatre in Berkeley hosted the Homesick Festival, created and curated by Anthony Anzaldo of the band Ceremony. Instead of his band headlining, like they had last year, Anzaldo invited bands from various genres and countries to come together for two days of music and community. And what an event it was. Opening the first day was Canadian power pop band Supercrush. The four-piece powered through a seven-song set, mostly comprised of material…
SF Jazz Resident Artistic Directors Reunion Concert SF Jazz January 14, 2023 Photos by Rick Swig On January 14th, to celebrate its 10th anniversary, SF Jazz brought together a monumental group of musicians who have served as artistic directors at some point in the organization’s history. The night’s lineup consisted of electric violinist Laurie Anderson, guitarist Bill Frisell, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, bassist Marcus Shelby, saxophonist Joshua Redman, and pianist Edward Simon. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect as the sextet took the stage, especially with a wild card like Laurie Anderson: a chameleonic artist whose work spans from…
Celebrating David Bowie San Jose Civic October 8, 2022 Photos by Paul Piazza The music of David Bowie means different things to different people. To some he’s the eternally glammed out extraterrestrial Ziggy Stardust. To others he’s the well-tailored Thin White Duke, throwing darts in lover’s eyes. And to yet another audience he’s the bleached blonde pop superstar of the early 1980s. And so on and so on. So it was interesting to see which areas of David Bowie’s illustrious career would be the focus of this year’s Celebrating David Bowie tour, put on by bandleader extraordinaire Angelo Bundini (aka…
Ever since 2016, Angelo Bundini (known in the industry as Scrote) has been coordinating and performing in the monumental Celebrating David Bowie tour. Featuring a revolving line of musical collaborators and guest musicians, including some of David Bowie’s ex-band members, Angelo is bringing the tour back in 2022 with Adrian Belew and Todd Rundgren. I sat down with Angelo and Adrian over Zoom and picked their brains about the upcoming tour and their personal connections with David Bowie and his music. Tyler King: First of all, I want to say thank you for taking the time to talk to me.…
Grace Jones Fox Theater September 23, 2022 Photos by Tyler King Grace Jones needs no introduction. An icon not just in the music world, Jones is almost as well-known as being a model, working with the likes of Yves St. Laurent, Kenza Takada, and rubbing shoulders with Giorgio Armani and the late Karl Lagerfeld. Hell, if she hadn’t entered the world of music, she would arguably still be recognized as one of the most striking models of all time. But no. She just had to go ahead and knock it out of the park with album after album of innovative…
Gorillaz Chase Center September 21, 2022 Photos by Ashleigh Castro For anyone around in the year 2005, Gorillaz need no introduction. If you listened to the radio that year, you of course heard “Feel Good, Inc.” nearly every single day. Hell, if you listen to the radio now you’re going to hear “Feel Good, Inc.” every day. The brainchild of Blur frontman Damon Albarn and Tank Girl creator Jamie Hewlett, the virtual band is gearing up to release their eighth studio album, Cracker Island, in February of next year, and have hit the road with their current live iteration in…
Cold Cave The Chapel September 8, 2022 Photos by Tyler King For part of The Chapel’s 10-Year Anniversary Shows, two nights of Cold Cave headlining were announced. The second night, September 9th, was almost sold out, but I attended the September 8th show. The first time I saw the band was also at The Chapel in 2019, and it felt refreshing to see the band where I had first witnessed the darkwave and post-punk-inspired project founded by Wes Eisold. Taking the stage amid a flurry of smoke, Wes, partner Amy Lee, and the rest of the live band took to…
Duran Duran Chase Center September 4, 2022 Photos by Raymond Ahner Fans attending the Duran Duran show at the Chase Center in San Francisco had a lot to be excited for. This was the band’s first performance in the Bay Area since 2017, when they played the far smaller Masonic Auditorium. The band was riding high off of the release of last year’s album Future Past, and I for one was excited to see what songs they would play from their new album. But therein lies one of my issues with this particular show: if you went to this show…
Gary Numan Bimbo’s 365 Club September 1, 2022 Photos by Tyler King I’ve been seeing Gary Numan live since 2010. Ever since I first saw him, I’ve had the privilege of seeing him perform eleven times, throughout various tours and one-off residencies. His shows have always been something I’ve looked forward to, his music having been something that has both been an inspiration to my own music and also helped me through some of my darkest times. I’ve seen him deliver performances that have brought me to tears and left me shaken to my core, so believe me when I…
Franz Ferdinand The Fox Theater August 30, 2022 Photos by Nicole Baptista If you’re of a certain age, the band Franz Ferdinand needs no introduction. One of the figureheads of the early 2000s post-punk revival, alongside other stalwarts like Bloc Party and Interpol, the band helped to bring back the jerking rhythms and jangly guitar of decades past. The band has been around long enough now to even warrant their first official greatest hits album, Hits To The Head, which is what the band was touring behind when they played The Fox Theater in Oakland on August 30th. I remember…
For fans of synth pop, and any kind of electronic music, the name Gary Numan needs no introduction. Bursting onto the music scene in the late 1970s backed with song after song that pushed the boundaries of what synthesizers could do in the realm of popular music, Numan has been a trendsetter for most of his life. A massive fan of his music myself, I was able to sit down with him over Zoom and spend some time talking about what’s next for him, including his upcoming US tour, re-recordings of his first three industrial-inspired albums, and where to go…
The Zombies The Chapel July 18, 2022 Photos by Tyler King When you talk about the great British bands of the 1960s that invaded the radio of the United States, there are of course going to be the usual bands that always come up: The Beatles. The Rolling Stones. The Who. The Kinks. Personally, I grew up listening to and loving The Beatles, so of course I would always mention them first. But to me, the most interesting band to come out of England in that decade besides The Fab Four were The Zombies. Perhaps best known for their 1964…
I’ve been a fan of The Soft Moon, the darkwave-infused post-punk solo project of Luis Vasquez, for about half a dozen years now. I first saw them on tour in 2016 in support of the 2015 album Deeper at The New Parish in Oakland, a show that would see The Soft Moon having their touring van broken into and most of their gear being stolen while onstage. My second time seeing them was at The Starline Social Club in Oakland, touring behind 2018’s Criminal, which saw the power going out onstage during their set. I relay these experiences on a…
Howard Jones and Midge Ure Bimbo’s 365 Club June 22, 2022 Photos by Tyler King When I pulled up to Bimbo’s 365 Club in San Francisco on the evening of June 22, the line was stretching around the block. For anyone who may have been passing by on the street, you may have thought that the massive line to get into the venue was for a modern act, but I knew exactly who I was going to see: synth pop and new wave heavyweight Howard Jones. I last saw him in the summer of 2019, and I was eager to…